Fly fishing - season 2

   A Sunday morning in July.  KC is in Los Angeles.  Megan is in Centerville, on the Cape.  Rachel is in Italy.  I am in waders, making my way down the Mettawee River, between North Rupert and Pawlet, Vermont.  A beautiful morning - not too warm yet.  As usual, not another soul on the river.  I move along from pool to pool, trying first a woolly bugger, then a small wet fly with dark red coloring. Casting pretty well, I think, but raising no fish.  I come to a riffle in a narrow crease of the river, with a downed tree on the left.  It like it covers a fairly deep pool.  I take the time to tie the woolly bugger back on, thinking I can float it down through the riffle and then swim it back up through the pool, making it look like a minnow.  I have trouble tying it on, for some reason, but stick with it, and take my time testing my knot.  I position myself left of the crease and loft the fly into the head of the riffle.  The line spools out as the swift current takes the fly downstream.  I have no idea what I'm doing, I think.  I start wondering if maybe I should pack it in early, and spend the morning driving the back roads on camera safari instead.  Half my mind on this, the other half working the fly up through the pool, and WHAM - a fat trout strikes through the fly like a blitzing linebacker, thrashing up to the surface one, twice, heavy on the long, pulsing rod.  I work the fish up into the shallows - stay on, just stay on - and up onto the rocky side of the stream.  A beautiful brown trout - which measures a full 12 inches.  A fine fish for this little stream.  A trophy for the novice fly fisherman.  Heart pounding.  Smiling ear to ear.